From what I've read, the way a layer on a chip is made is a coating is deposited on the surface that is sensitive to light at certain wavelengths. They then use light of wavelengths that the coating is sensitive to in order to transfer a pattern from a photomask to the surface, making some change to the coating at those places where the light is not blocked by the photomask. Then they can treat the surface to remove the coating at those places were it was changed by the light.
They then can deposit thing onto or remove things from those parts of the surface not still protected by the coating. Then they can use something that can remove the coating. The result is a layer on the chip with things deposited or removed right where they wanted them to, as determined by the pattern on the photomask.
Repeat for more layers.
The major improvements from generation to generation are the ability to use shorter and shorter wavelengths of light for the photolithography which allows for transferring patterns that have smaller features, and maybe the ability to make thinner layers so you can make chips with more layers.
I don't see anything in the photolithography process that requires using small feature size. If for some reason you wanted to build an older chip that only used much larger features, I'd expect that it would just be a matter of using the photomasks for that older chip, and setting the layer thickness to what the old design called for.